18.7.2022
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
C 275/5
2.
Introduction and general comments 2.1.
EU and global tourism will not return to its pre-pandemic level.
The impact of the pandemic and its consequences for societies and the economy are not yet fully apparent.
Before COVID-19, tourism directly or indirectly accounted for nearly 10 % of the EU’s GDP, provided about 22,6 million jobs and made the EU the world’s leading tourism destination, with 563 million international arrivals and 30 % of global profits in 2018.
With 30 % of international arrivals in 2018, the EU was the most popular tourist destination in the world.
There were more than 600 000 tourist establishments in the EU-27 in 2018 and bookings for overnight accommodation totalled 1 326 049 994 nights.
2.2.
The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) estimated that tourism industries are responsible for more than 6 % of total EU employment.
Furthermore, tourism contributes much more to employment in some regions and is often the only form of employment for low-skilled workers.
For example, in Crete (Greece), Jadranska Hrvatska (Croatia), Valle d’Aosta (Italy) and the Canary Islands (Spain), tourism accounts for more than 30 % of total regional employment.
2.3.
After various post-pandemic waves in 2020 and 2021, we can now see the magnitude of COVID-19’s impact on employment and the devastating social consequences in the tourism and transport sectors: a lack of international tourism, insufficient and fragile demand for tourism-related goods/services (due to consumption models and behavioural changes in tourism in times of COVID-19), a growing number of business failures and growing indebtedness (which is not just limited to tourism companies), difficulties accessing liquidity measures and ineffective responses from public administrations.
The so-called stop-and-go reopening measures, the misuse of green pass restriction measures and the inability of independent authorities to guarantee homogeneous tourist/traveller and business rights, the complexity and often lack of reliable information on the actual local health and safety situation for tourists, and the complex bureaucratic procedures for intra-mobility within the EU’s internal borders are also not helping to restore cross-border mobility and stimulate economic recovery.
2.4.
It is worth mentioning that, according to the recent European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) report (12), the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on various tourism destinations in the European Union is ‘asymmetrical and highly localised’.
2.5.
As seen from EPRS report Figures 1 and 2, during the pandemic, tourism’s contribution to employment and GDP reduced considerably.
In Italy, for example, tourism’s contribution to GDP halved in 2020 (compared with 2019), dropping from 13,1 % to 7 %, and 337 000 jobs were lost.
Compared with the United States, several EU Member States (e.g. Germany, Italy and France) saw a bigger loss in terms of GDP but suffered less in terms of employment.
2.6.
Twenty-one months after the pandemic began in Europe, global tourism and transportation ecosystems are still all facing an unprecedented crisis (13).
2.7.
In the EU, we have also seen ‘new’ commuting and shopping patterns in urban areas, adapted to government-imposed travel restrictions, such as increased walking, cycling, car travel and online shopping, at the expense of travelling by public transport.
In many EU countries, as a result of COVID-19 restrictions, older people in particular have not been able to feed demand for seasonal tourism and transport.
2.8.
Travel by rail, cruise liner, passenger ship and aeroplane have suffered, in line with a 70 % drop in international tourism demand, leading to revenue and job losses in both sectors and the sectors that depend on them (e.g. industrial and retail sectors).
Although the impact on freight transport have thus far been modest, the sector is expected to shrink in the coming years, especially if the economy is in recession.
Therefore, these sectors should receive appropriate consideration in the EU’s and the Member States’ recovery plans.
2.9.
As well as these phenomena, the recent fires in southern Europe and flooding in northern Europe also showed — beyond the tragic human and economic losses — how conventional policies and the existing fragile rescEU mechanism are not delivering the expected results and have proven to be unfit for long-term sustainable development models.
(12) (13)
European Parliament Think Tank, Relaunching transport and tourism in the EU after COVID-19, February 2021.
This has most severely affected small businesses and self-employed people in the respective value and supply chains, as well as workers and societies and their resilience capacities.